The Other Side of Me
by ThirteenWishes
Summary: Gracie Torres is dead, and Adam Torres died with her, as a whisper waiting to be heard in a thunderstorm, a secret begging to be shared.


The clouds overhead were dark and threatening, an evil-looking purplish black. The earth itself was swelled to the bursting point with tension; the very air was so thick with the promise of rain that it was hard to breathe. If this had been any other day, Eli Goldsworthy would have realized that this was the perfect introduction to some Gothic Tales entry; he knew that the storm would break as he approached the grave of someone he had loved.

Except for he hadn't loved her, not like that. Because _she _was really a _he_, and Eli had known that in the back of his mind since the first day he saw her. Him. He wasn't sure what pronoun to use for his recently departed friend who was now resting six feet under in a dark wooden box, the weight of the world pressing down on his corpse.

The roses he had chosen- because it was practically mandatory to bring roses to a graveyard- were white. He'd chosen them not because they were the first bouquet he'd seen in the store- even though they were- but because white always reminded him of innocence. Purity. And if he could choose one word to describe Gracie Torres, it would be innocent.

She hadn't deserved what happened to her.

Eli frowned as he approached the first of the graves. Was the person lying under a cold slab of stone a he or a she? After all, she had been born a girl, but she had the mind of a guy, something Eli knew only too well. Gracie had been his best friend, and he'd never really thought of her as a girl. Sure, she was pretty, but that wasn't the point. Gracie was one hundred percent guy between the ears.

But it didn't matter anymore, because she was dead.

Dead.

Far above him was the quiet rumble of thunder, but he didn't even spare a glance at the menacing storm that was about to unleash its full fury- he had found her gravestone, and there was already someone kneeling beside it. Curly cinnamon hair, huge blue eyes, and tears rolling down her cheeks. Clare didn't look at him as he neatly arranged the white roses. Gracie, if she were here, would call him an idiot for taking such care, but he needed to do something with his hands, to keep himself occupied, or he would break apart. He needed to keep his mind focused on something other than the fact that he was laying roses on the grave of his best friend.

_Grace Chelsea Torres_

A single tear landed on the grave, a near perfect splatter of water, but it fell from neither Clare nor Eli's eyes. The sky itself was weeping for her death. The earth, the air, the water, everything was mourning Gracie.

Clare moved slowly, sluggishly, as if suddenly weights were pushing down on her shoulders. She pulled a folded piece of paper from her pocket and placed it over the first two names on the grave. The letters now read _Adam Torres._

Adam. The name Gracie had chosen for herself, the night before she died. Adam, the first man. She'd laughed, but her eyes had clouded over with some emotion that Eli had been unable to read.

"Adam, the first man," she'd sighed. "A suitable name for a man who was never meant to be."

Eli wondered what she had meant by those words. He remembered every last detail about Gracie, down to the scars on the inside of her arm.

_A man who was never meant to be._

Then the storm broke above them, drenching both Clare and Eli in a torrent of icy water. Neither moved, and neither said a word. The ink on the paper, the letters Clare had carefully printed, began to run down the page, carried by the flood of raindrops. Within seconds, the paper was soaked through, yet a faint, ghosted outline of the letters remained, refusing to wash away.

It was as if the two names, Gracie and Adam, symbolized Eli's lost friend. Solidly set in stone, Gracie Torres was everyone's expectation. Born a girl, always a girl. Her name was carved into stone now, forever a reminder of who she was.

But inside of Gracie was a quiet voice, drenched and torn, but refusing to be washed away. Adam.

And tears began to fall from Eli's eyes when he realized that it had taken the death of Gracie for him to realize the truth behind Adam.

He cried for Gracie and for Adam, to parts to the same whole. He cried for the loss that had so suddenly impacted his life, leaving a crater of grief and regret. He cried with the earth, with the heavens, and with the only other person who understood Gracie. His hand met Clare's, their fingers interlocking, as they wept in the storm by the grave of their friend.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, the words barely audible over the storm. "I'm sorry that I never saw the other side of you."


End file.
